Advertisements delivered over the Internet provide a large amount of revenue for business. Web pages often have banner ads included on the page. Banner ads may be in various forms, including static text or images, animations, audio, and videos. Typically, banner ads have a visual component on a page and one or more associated links. When a user clicks on a link, a corresponding URL is used to retrieve a web page related to the advertiser. Often, this is a home page or other page of the advertiser's web site. From there, the user can browse the web site.
Application ads are typically returned by a network application in response to a user interacting with the application. A sponsored search ad is an application ad produced by a search application. Sponsored search ads, or simply “search ads” are typically returned by a web server in response to a user performing a search. One or more of the keywords sent in the search request may be used to select search ads to be returned with the search results. Search ads may appear similar to the actual search results and be integrated with the search results. They may also appear in a separate section of a search results page. They may appear and have the attributes of a banner ad, such as having associated links as discussed above. As used herein, the terms “ad” or “advertisement” may refer to a search ad, a banner ad, or another type of advertisement. Another example of an application ad is one produced by a mapping application. The ad may be integrated with a map, or directions sent to the user.
Mobile devices have different characteristics from non-mobile devices. They typically have smaller display screens. They may have different input mechanisms, or have other capabilities that differ from non-mobile devices, such as capabilities of initiating telephone calls, sending and receiving SMS messages, providing location information, and the like. A user interacting with a mobile device may have different needs or interests than a user of a non-mobile device. Also, many advertisers do not have mobile web sites, or web sites that can be easily viewed and navigated from a mobile device. It is important for advertisers and web content providers to have effective ways of advertising across the Internet. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.